Wouldn’t that require stopping in the rotary?
I assumed the pummeler was already stopped behind the pummelee.
There’s a difference between common usage and technical usage. In New England, the common usage is rotary for any circular intersection. Traffic engineers use rotary to mean old (built before the 1960s) large circular intersections. The technical term for newer, smaller circles (in the US built since 1990†) is roundabout. There are also traffic calming circles which are smaller than roundabouts.
There are rotaries that still have Stop or Yield signs pointing at the traffic in the circular road. The few I can think of off-hand are in Canada, although I’m sure there are some in the US.
† The modern roundabout was developed in 1966, but none were built in the US until 1990. But they weren’t built in significant numbers‡ in the US until around 2003, so Europe and certain other places have about a 30-year head start on building them. Which is the main reason they’re much more common in western Europe. But the US is not the slowest country to adopt them. There were none in Japan until around 2013.
‡ Currently, there are something like 600 roundabouts built in the US every year with a total of over 10,000 in the entire country.
In Upstate New York where I’m from, they’re called traffic circles. My hometown has one, the Latham Traffic Circle, at coordinates 42.74814, -73.76097. The traffic circle is close to the geographic center of Latham.
The wiki page for it is titled Latham Circle, but when I lived there it was called Latham Traffic Circle. It was built in 1934.
There was a fad for awhile to put roundabouts at the bottom of offramps from semi-rural interstates. Connect the access road, the crossover/crossunder, and the on/off ramps all with one roundabout. Sounds great.
Except they’re too small in radius for most semis. Trucks get high centered, or tipped over, or … when they drag the trailer van partly or fully over the central island. Oops.
Makes you wonder when the last time was the traffic engineering manual for the roundabouts was updated… (and really, if you don’t have the footprint, don’t try to shove one in).
Try this roundabout for size:
That’s really the problem. The original roads were set up in the 1950s & 1960s for much shorter vehicles and less traffic. So they try the roundabout to ease both the turn radius and the congestion problems. But they can’t / won’t obtain the extra land to build it big enough. Shoe-horning ensues.
Which can be made to work if you just pave the whole thing flat and define the circle with paint. But if anyone tries the raised mound in the middle with curbs and all, that’s when the trouble begins. And of course every locale likes to decorate those raised mounds with shrubs, or a sign for the city, or whatever. Until about the 10th time it gets plowed under by a wayward truck.
This is great. May I quote you?
Sure, but it’s probably more clever-sounding than insightful. I’m not sure we have a stellar voting record in the UK recently.
My fave was one back home in PR in Guaynabo city, in front if their transportation museum, they put an old GA airplane on a pedestal. Then came Hurricane Maria and of course that sucker lifted right off the attachments (then smashed into the parking lot across the roadway). And of course as soon as someone discarded another one, up it went, again.
What may work in those spots is a mini-roundabout. Painted center islands for mini-roundabouts is something they do in the UK, but generally won’t work in the US. That’s mostly because of the US’s inexperience with roundabouts. Far too many drivers would ignore the painted circle and drive straight through.
Instead, pretty much all American mini-roundabouts have a raised truck apron center. There’s no center island with shrubbery or artwork. The curbs on them are mountable, but you really don’t want to take your car over them, at least not at anything more than about 5 mph. They’re intended for the rear wheels of large vehicles to go over.
The ‘magic roundabout’ at Hemel Hempstead [England] had two countercirculating lanes of traffic and smaller satellite mini-roundabouts around the edge of it. The design has been changed several times over the years, in an effort to improve it.
Which every now and then provides entertainment as an oblivious car driver barrels through and ski jumps themselves off the raised center.
That looks like a normal roundabout that you’re find on a dual carriageway or motorway? It’s not something complicated like this.
In the UK, on larger, busier roundabouts, there are often traffic light as well.
Here for example. (can’t imbed that link for some reason)